On January 25, 2002 a remarkable group of 52 soldiers and officers of the Israeli army reserves published a quarter-page letter which appeared in the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz. In this letter, they called on their comrades-in-arms to join their act of refusal to serve in the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza. In a manifesto published in a book in 2003 entitled “Breaking Ranks: Refusing to Serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” they further declared: “we shall not continue to fight beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve, and humiliate an entire people.”

Sherif Fam speaks to Oded Na’aman, a 26 year-old former crew commander in the artillery corps of the Israeli Defense Forces, who spent a year as a soldier and commander in checkpoints all over the West Bank, then became a member of “Breaking the Silence.”

This program was produced by This Week In Palestine for WZBC radio on March 3, 2008.

For more information, visit:
truthandjusticeradio.org

In the U.S. mass media in-depth criticism of the Israeli government is hard to come by; even harder to find are comments from Israelis and American Jews who oppose the military occupation of Palestinian territory. Among Jews, opinions on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict are diverse — many favor non-violent solutions to the conflict and peaceful coexistence with the Palestinians. On this edition of Making Contact, you’ll hear the viewpoints of Israeli Jews and Jewish Americans who are part of an international peace movement to end the violence in the Middle East. You’ll also hear about an American activist who put her life on the line in the Occupied Territories.

Featuring:
Liot Weingart, co-director of A Jewish Voice for Peace;
Ben Eckstein, an Israeli conscientious objector, or “Refusenik;”
Rabbi Arik Ascherman, Rabbis for Human Rights;
Colin Reese, a close friend of Rachael Corrie, an American activist who was killed by an Israeli Defense Force bulldozer driver in the Occupied Territories;
Cindy Corrie, Rachael Corrie’s mother;
Phan Nguyen, International Solidarity Movement.

This program was produced by Making Contact for the National Radio Project on June 4, 2003.

For more information, visit:
radioproject.org
jewishvoiceforpeace.org
rhr.israel.net
rachelcorriefoundation.org
palsolidarity.org

George Cadman of Free Radio Santa Cruz interviews Peretz Kidron about the current political situation in Israel and about his book, “Refusenik! Israel’s Soldiers of Conscience”. Peretz Kidron is a freelance journalist, broadcaster and writer. In the late 1960’s he became active in the radical left and the peace movement in Israel. He is a founding member of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and serves on the steering committee of the Israeli human rights group B’tselem. Having refused to perform military duty in the occupied Palestinian territories, he now handles international contacts for Yesh Gvul (There Is A Limit). Founded at the time of the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the group has become the voice and campaigning vehicle for the so-called refuseniks-Israeli soldiers who refuse morally objectionable assignments (notably in the West Bank and Gaza).

This program was produced by George Cadman for Free Radio Santa Cruz on September 7, 2006.

For more information, visit:
freakradio.org
otherisrael.home.igc.org/ICIPP.html (Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace)
btselem.org
www.yeshgvul.org/